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Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

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Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#31

Post by WiseWeasel »

simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I totally understand why the karma is kept hidden, to avoid herding votes, but I also really miss the access to the HN community barometer. I placed great value in the information contained in those vote tallies, and it hurts to have that taken away completely.

A good compromise would be to have a button at the bottom of the page that says, "OK, I'm done voting now, please show me the tallies", and the voting buttons would disappear, and tallies would appear in their place.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#32

Post by simonsquiff »

angrycoder wrote: post #17
simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I don't miss the karma at all. If you don't have time to read the comments and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad, why are you even here?

It's like removing karma on articles, and saying 'if you don't have time to read the articles and evaluate for yourself which ones are good or bad why are you even here'?

For me there are a number of answers to your question:

- I love HN because I get to learn about lots of stuff I know very little about. For example I'm a business guy not a progammer, but I love to learn more about the non-business things. I genuinely can't judge the 'good or bad' on my own on some of this stuff. The karma gives me a quick and simple way of the community - this wonderful, intelligent community - pointing me in the right direction.

- It also shows where my comments might be off base - not because my comments karma is high or low (which I still see) but because I can see if the counter arguments are rated highly. For example I can't see if your comment is highly regarded or not. If was +40, compared to +1, I'd be more likely to think 'hmm, maybe I'm wrong on this after all'. Sometime is not just the power of the argument that changes minds, it's the weight behind it. I can't see that weight now.

-sometimes I quickly browse HN with some minutes of down time. Sometimes I read in depth. I now feel I'm being forced all the time to read in depth. Whilst that sounds good, in practise for me it isn't. Instead of more in depth reading I'm just cutting out the browsing, so I feel ultimately I'm getting less out of HN.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#33

Post by amichail »

bane wrote: post #29
mcav wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no indication of number of upvotes, though, there is no distinction between a 200-point comment on top versus a 2-point comment that happens to be on top. Sometimes it was easier to skip parts of a thread knowing approximately how many upvotes each post received.

It should be the content of the posts that matter not the point total.

Why not show the comment score after you vote on the comment?

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#34

Post by mcav »

bane wrote: post #29
mcav wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With no indication of number of upvotes, though, there is no distinction between a 200-point comment on top versus a 2-point comment that happens to be on top. Sometimes it was easier to skip parts of a thread knowing approximately how many upvotes each post received.

It should be the content of the posts that matter not the point total.

Bluntly, I don't want to read every comment.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#35

Post by davidw »

Yzupnick wrote: post #30
davidw wrote: post #14

Where I could see things changing is higher highs and lower lows: previously I wouldn't downvote a well-intentioned but wrong comment below 0 or -1, but now I might because I don't know. Also, previously, I stopped voting up the first comment on an article if it already had a ton of votes, now I'm not so sure, so I might vote for it.

Why would you downvote a well-intentioned but wrong comment? If something is wrong, explain why it is wrong. Downvotes, I think, should be reserved for comments that are 1) pointless ex:"agree" or "great post" 2) mean ex: "How could you be so ignorant!" 3) Way off topic. Everything else should get ignored or warrants further discussion. In some cases it is even important to upvote "wrong" comments.

If someone states that it is their firm belief that the Earth does indeed sit at the center of the universe, with the sun revolving around it, I just can't agree with it, and think it should not be a highly rated comment.

Same sort of deal when people are factually wrong, but aren't being a jerk about it: I don't think they should rate that highly, but I wouldn't likely vote them into negative territory either. And yeah, I might leave a comment too.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#37

Post by bogomips »

abcd_f wrote: post #28

The downvoting needs one simple change. It should not drop comment's score below zero until it has been effectively voted down to -10 or thereabouts, in which case it can be safely assumed the comment is a true junk and grayed out. I personally used to use downvoting to sink comments that are of no particular interest to me, and to promote other branches of the thread that I'd like more people to look at and comment…

I personally used to use downvoting to sink comments that are of no particular interest to me, and to promote other branches of the thread that I'd like more people to look at and comment on.

This is exactly what is wrong with HN. It is essentially a (rather desperate) attempt to create reality through votes.

The math is difficult, but honestly I would like good statistical correlations to happen, such that people like you are excluded from the vote counts (or the impact of the same) that I see.

If there are circles of people who want to manufacture a delusion of a particular blend of crazy, the correlation engine should see their common ambitions and reflect that for just them. I don't want those potentially useful comments hidden, or trite sophistry at the top, simply because some subset of users wants to impose that will.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#38

Post by yesimahuman »

simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I agree. I've kind of stopped reading comments and voting because I don't have the time to filter through them all. There are always comments that get downvoted to hell due to complete inaccuracies and I don't want to waste my time on them.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#39

Post by WiseWeasel »

WiseWeasel wrote: post #31
simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I totally understand why the karma is kept hidden, to avoid herding votes, but I also really miss the access to the HN community barometer. I placed great value in the information contained in those vote tallies, and it hurts to have that taken away completely. A good compromise would be to have a button at the bottom of the page that says, "OK, I'm done voting now, please show me the tallies", and the voting buttons…

A more thoroughly thought-out (easy to implement) architecture would be for voting to be disabled on all threads after x days, with vote tallies being displayed at that point.

If you guys want to fancy it up, you could implement the feature where users could indicate they're done voting on the thread and see the tallies early, and you'd only have to keep track of x days worth of user thread status flags before you can purge the data.

Re: Ask PG: Can we see the response to the HN changes?

#40

Post by michaelochurch »

simonsquiff wrote: post #10

Personally I'm really missing seeing the karma on comments. Fundamentally, removing them has changed the balance of what karma is all about. Karma previously had a function for the reader. It highlighted and bubbled up the good. It showed where there were good counter points. Now...well it's just for the account owner. It feels just like it's there for your own rpg-levelling style dopamine hit. It feels pointless. I…

I would like to see the karma after (a) voting or (b) 24 hours. I understand wanting to cloak it on a hot thread, at least until a person makes up his or her mind, but I think it should become visible eventually.
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